Once again, Clarence Thomas proves that he is a man of the 19th century. In a bad way.

Case in point is this morning’s decision in Safford Unified School District #1 v. Redding. The court ruled 8-1 that school officials violated the Fourth Amendment when they made a girl lift her underwear in order to search for illegal drugs:

Romero and Schwallier directed Savana to remove her clothes down to her underwear, and then “pull out” her bra and the elastic band on her underpants…. The very fact of Savana’s pulling her underwear away from her body in the presence of the two officials who were able to see her necessarily exposed her breasts and pelvic area to some degree.

The majority split over the actual remedy, but everyone in the majority agreed it was a constitutional violation.

The lone dissenter? Justice Thomas. He argued that the school administrators should have been left alone to treat the kids however they wanted:

This deep intrusion into the administration of public schools exemplifies why the Court should return to the common-law doctrine of in loco parentis under which “the judiciary was reluctant to interfere in the routine business of school administration, allowing schools and teachers to set and enforce rules and to maintain order.”

The phrase inside quotation marks comes from his concurring opinion a few years ago in the famous “BONG HITS 4 JESUS” case, where he argued that students have zero constitutional rights, including the right to free speech.

Later, he quotes from that concurring opinion again:

If parents do not like the rules imposed by those schools, they can seek redress in school boards or legislatures; they can send their children to private schools or home school them; or they can simply move.

Yes, of course! A couple of working-class parents can somehow scrounge up the tuition for private school; or one of them can quit working, thereby reducing the family’s income, and stay home and teach the kids all day, because I’m sure the parent knows how to teach history or math or science; or better yet, the family can just move somewhere else — I’m sure they can get a fabulous price for their house these days — and the parents can both look for new jobs. Brilliant!

Thomas argues elsewhere in the opinion that because parents can do whatever they want to their children, that control passes to school administrators during the school day — the school acts in loco parentis, “in place of the parents.” But what about the situation where the parents disagree with the way the school adminstrators have treated their kids? For instance, you may think it’s okay to spank your kid but that it’s wrong for someone else to spank your kid.

I tend to see some merit in most judicial opinions, and I can sort of see where Thomas is coming from. He’s right, in theory, that not every bad thing rises to a constitutional violation. But it’s one thing to say that something does not violate a constitutional right, and it’s another to say that a particular class of people simply lacks constitutional rights. Public school is a necessity for most kids — they just don’t have another viable option for education — and it’s unconscionable to argue that kids give up all their rights when they go to these places.

Parents can simply turn to the school board or the legislature? What if a minority is involved? What if, for instance, school administrators decide they’re going to strip-search only Muslim students, because they believe all Muslim teenagers are potential terrorists? What if most of the community agrees? How do you elect a more favorable school board then? What if most of the state agrees? How do you elect a more favorable legislature?

One of the purposes of constitutional rights is to protect the minority from the majority. Thomas is blind to this concern. He’s really in a world of his own here. Not even the other conservatives on the Court agree with him.

(Oddly, he sided with the four liberals today in another case, involving the issue of punitive damages.)